


These Are The Reasons We Already Know

by binz



Category: Dresden Files - Butcher
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between White Night and Small Favor. Michael always comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Are The Reasons We Already Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JK Ashavah](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=JK+Ashavah).



> Thanks for the help, unnamed friends! Happy Yuletide, JK.

The front door creaks long and low and loud in the quiet dark, the weak early morning sunlight gray and hazy behind him, and Michael grimaces as he takes the quietest step he can off the cheerful welcome mat and over the threshold. His boots clunk down heavily on the tile of the entrance way anyway, somehow louder with each step, and Michael reasons that walking on tiptoe is less than effective when you happen to be wearing steel toed boots.

The living room is awash in shades of blue; shadows and dim furniture and a stillness so deep that he lets the sports bag drop as he breathes it in. The bag hits the ground with a heavy thump, the holy blade inside weighing it down, and he goes still, wincing as the impact runs through the ground and up the walls and makes the chandelier over the dining room table ring. But the only sound that follows is the springs of one of the beds upstairs creaking, just loud and familiar enough to be Matthew rolling over -- he'd always been a restless sleeper; night terrors as a toddler and sleepwalking until he'd turned ten -- and there is no patter and clomp of footsteps flying out of bed or racing across the landing and down the stairs, and Michael lets his shoulders relax.

He resigns himself to the squeak of the hinges as the door closes again, and remembers that he had told Charity he would take care of it three weekends past. The trip to Bolivia had interrupted that, coming suddenly mid-supper, and Charity had recognized the look on his face almost as soon as he'd realized he needed to go, but he doubts that even she had guessed how far and long away he'd be.

His skin has gone dark, tanned and freckled on his arms and red on his cheeks above his nose and along the insides of his biceps, the flesh there soft and pale and surprisingly susceptible to the midday sun. But that sun had kept him and Sanya and the villagers protected from the Red Court colony that was moving into the territory and murdering their families, had given them time to plan and a measure of safe haven, and Michael cannot mind the stretch and pull of the burn for being what it is.

He will take care of the hinges that day, while there is time, and mend the fence in the backyard, and do anything else that there is for him to do.

Michael bends to untie his boots, winces at the mud he has tracked in, and wonders if he can get away with cleaning it up before Charity notices. He thinks of the dog he had had growing up, her tendency to dig up his aunt's potentillas and track the garden through their small house, and the racket she'd made every time he'd come home from anywhere, barking and baying and knocking down anything that got within vicinity of her paws or tail. He hasn't thought of her since the last time he arrived home while the family was sleeping, and thinks the same thing he does every time, the mental path as familiar as the one from the driveway to the front door, that it's a shame that his children don't have a pet, and reasons with a tired smile that it's probably best for their sleep schedules.

He frowns; he doesn't know what day it is, and tries to count back. He'd left on a Wednesday. Sanya had arrived, dusty and sardonic and wearing a garishly bright Hawaiian shirt, on the first Saturday. The children had started dying on the Tuesday. The town had burnt the next Friday. They had killed the last of the vampires on Sunday.

It was Thursday morning, then. A school day, and he's grateful again that he hasn't woken his children yet. He's grateful to be home.

He puts his boots and jacket in the closet, and pulls an old, threadbare towel from his sports bag and wipes up the mud on the tiles. Charity, he knows, will see it anyway, but he thinks he managed to clean up most of it. He toes off his socks, puts them in the closet in his boots, and picks up his bag in one hand, tiptoeing through the house until he gets to the back door.

The grass is wet and cool under his feet -- it must have rained last night, a late April shower -- and he sprints across the yard, dodging Harry's bicycle and a softball bat and ball that must be Alicia's, and hops, alternating which foot has to be cold as he unlocks the side door to the garage.

There's a pair of old, worn-in sneakers just inside the door -- although judging from the off-angle skew to them, someone else has borrowed them since the last time he made the barefooted dash across the lawn -- and he slides them on easily, the leather creased and almost flat and the laces brown and knotted more to keep them in one piece than to keep the shoes tied.

He finds the chain to the bare bulb hanging over his head without thinking about it -- reaches up, pulls, releases -- and puts his bag down on the bench along the wall. Amoracchius gleams even in the dim light when Michael takes it from his bag, unwraps the towels and padding from around the blade, and holds it aloft.

Michael's eyes narrow as he examines the blade, holds it closer and farther back -- he still hasn't managed to remember to leave one of his many pairs of drugstore reading glasses in his workroom here in the garage -- and rubs his thumb carefully along the flat of the blade where it had intercepted a metal support beam being swung at him by a particularly violent vampire. The impact had made his teeth ring for an hour, but the sword shows no signs of damage.

He leaves Amoracchius buckled up in its home storage case under the workbench, will return later in the day to thoroughly clean and oil the blade and handle, and locks the door behind him.

The sun is slowly creeping its way up the eastern sky, orange and pink mixing with the gray predawn and Michael stares at it, rolls his neck and shoulders, and hops barefooted across the grass again. He wipes his feet on the mat at the door until he thinks they're fairly dry, still too cold to tell for sure by touch, and walks slowly through the kitchen. There are leftovers and lunches packed up in the fridge, individual calendars and sports schedules stuck to the fridge door and pinned up beside the family calendar, and Daniel's scholarship applications are piled neatly on the counter by the phone.

Michael hovers his hand over the pile, the Northwestern calendar on top, and thinks of Daniel's first birthday; of his last; of the boy younger than him who had cut the throat of one badly-burnt vampire and was disemboweled by another.

Michael goes upstairs. He checks the various bedroom doors; closed or left half-open depending on age, and Hope and Harry's rooms are still faintly lit by nightlights. He pauses at his and Charity's bedroom, hand outstretched to the door, and turns around, going instead to the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. It has served turns as an infirmary and a crash pad, has let friends and family sleep and recover and heal; but mostly, it is Charity's.

The door glides open easily, these hinges well-oiled, and between the warm grapefruit smell of often-worn hand cream and the neat containers of fabric stacked almost to the ceiling and the draped pieces of sundresses and children's costumes, he almost doesn't see his wife, tucked into a hard-backed kitchen chair and slumped over the little desk with just enough room for her sewing machine and thread box.

"Michael," she says, starting awake when he touches her shoulder, and she has his hand in hers a moment later, squeezing tightly. "Oh God, Michael."

"Shh," he says. "Shh. It's early yet. The children are sleeping."

"You're --" she says, and there are too many ways to finish that thought, so she uses his hand to pull herself up and kisses him.

"I'm okay," he says when they part, "I'm all right. You're --" and there are too many ways to end that too, so he presses his lips to the top of her head, and wraps his arms around her. "Come to bed," he says, and repeats "it's early yet. There's another hour to sleep, at least."

He folds into her in their bed, tucks his knees to her thighs and rests his head on her shoulder and presses one hand to her belly. She wraps her arms around his back. He closes his eyes and reminds himself to oil the hinges; to fix the fence; to pick up Harry and Hope and Amanda from school that afternoon; to call into the office and arrange to meet with his project supervisors on Friday; to stop by and talk with Father Forthill in a few hours.

Charity runs her fingers through his hair, down the side of one cheek into his beard and back up, and he doesn't tell her that the only thing he is unsure of is if he is worthy of her; doesn't tell her, hasn't told anyone but Harry Dresden, that he doesn't think he is meant to answer the call much longer; but says that he loves her, and falls asleep when she answers back.


End file.
